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“How do you figure?”
“We have to pitch this idea to Miranda. Why don’t you want to come?”
She shrugs but I’ve had enough experience with no-talkers recently. I clamp my mouth shut, and let her come to me. Like how I’d hold my hand out to Betty until she slowly got close enough to reach out her nose.
“I’m nervous, OK?” she says, much faster than I expected. “Sophisticated,” “socially competent,” “poised.” All are words I’d use to describe Audrey and Miranda. They’re a matched set. I thought I was the only one who was going to be nervous.
“Don’t laugh,” she says, but she’s laughing a little, too.
“I’m not laughing at you,” I promise. “I’m just surprised.”
“I have a lot of respect for Miranda. I’ve never hung out with her outside of work before.”
“Me neither.”
“Yeah, but you’ve probably been to a lot of dinners with a lot of lecturers here.”
“I mean, when I was a kid, yeah. My parents dragged me along to dinners with professors who either work elsewhere or are retired now. And they spent most of their time strategizing about the newest collective bargaining agreement or critiquing each other’s work. They’d usually let me watch my ancient VHS ofSister Act 2in the living room.”
Audrey pulls a face, the one she gives me when I’ve gone off on a tangent.
“So, you have to come,” I say, making myself ignore her arched brow. “I don’t think Miranda has a VCR.Don’t,” I say, as she huffs again.
“Don’t what?”
“Roll your eyes.”
When Miranda first chose The Pump I was excited. Good memories, good food. But as I walk in behind Audrey, smile at the same hostess who greeted me the night I met Jesse, run through the same list of acceptable and unacceptable conversation topics, I have a tummy ache with a side of nervous sweating.
Miranda waves at us from the booth she’s snagged. I wave back. I don’t look at the bar. I don’t. I do not.
Damn. I look at the bar. Stupidly, I think maybe he’ll be there, his shoulders broad and back straight. His knit sweater new. And then, when he’s not there—becausewhywould he be there, Lulu?—I’m disappointed.
“I’m so glad we’re doing this,” Miranda says as we slide into the booth. Audrey takes the spot beside her and I have the other side all to myself.
Miranda orders a glass of red wine, so Audrey and I do, too. She suggests we share the burrata as a starter and I don’t know how to tell them that the texture of a tomato makes me gag without sounding like a child so I agree. I slice off the smallest slices of tomato and wash it down with water.
Nora knew I hated tomatoes, and mushrooms. That I’d rather wear shoes or commit fashion suicide traipsing around in socks and sandals than let my feet get dirty. Jesse knows the sound of a knife buttering dry toast makes me cringe and that I use my hands too much when I talk when I’m nervous. One of the worst parts of making new friends is having to admit all of these idiosyncrasies, hoping against hope they’ll like me enough to see past them. The Pump is well-known for its steaks but I order the cheeseburger—no tomatoes—and by the time the server places our entrées in front of us, we’ve run out of historical small talk.
“So, Audrey and I had an idea,” I say, then promptly shove a bite of cheeseburger into my mouth. Audrey pauses with a forkful of double baked potato halfway to her mouth, her eyes open wide like “wtf dude.” I look back at her like “didn’t we agree to pitch this now?” except now that I’m thinking about it maybe we didn’t exactly agree to that.
Miranda glances between us, her diamond studs glinting in her ears. “Oh. Do I get to hear more about it?”
Audrey shoves potato into her mouth. I swallow quickly and almost choke on sesame seed bun. “We were thinking about working together.”
“On a paper or...?”
“A new course offering.” Audrey wipes her mouth with the linen napkin. “The history of magic and the history of how we perceive it.”
The more we explain, the faster Audrey speaks, clearly excited. Miranda sets her knife and fork down, like she needs her hands free to understand us better. I grip my empty wineglass as tightly as I can without snapping the stem to avoid extravagant hand gestures. Miranda hums when we’re finished, staring across the restaurant, and I wonder if she can see it as clearly as I can; that we can create an island of early modernists here in this little Pennsylvania college town.
“It’s an exciting idea, Doctors,” she says and she looks impressed.
Audrey makes a soft sound, grinning down at her plate. “It was Lulu’s.”
“It wasn’t really,” I insist. “It was...a friend’s. And he suggested it because I wouldn’t shut up about how cool your History of Magic class is.”
For the first time in my living memory, Audrey beams at me.
